


Private Mode

by Chash



Series: Followers [4]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hollywood, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 23:09:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13669221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chash/pseuds/Chash
Summary: Bellamy had totally forgotten that he ever joked about how he was going to marry Clarke Griffin. The only thing weirder than rediscovering that is the fact that he probablyisgoing to marry her. He really didn’t see that one coming.





	Private Mode

**Author's Note:**

> I hit 400 fics in t100 during my December fills and therefore did not get to do my customary self-indulgent fluff. So here it is, belatedly, for my 600th fic on AO3.

When Bellamy sees Xkit has added a new extension to archive tumblr messenger chats, Clarke is out of town filming, which is really the only reason he's checking tumblr as much as he is. He gets bored, without her around. If she was here, he probably wouldn't even have noticed. 

Even on his own, he doesn't think anything of it at first. All he does on tumblr these days is Hollywood Histories, and the only person he's ever talked to that much on messenger is Clarke, and even they don't use messenger anymore. As soon as she told him who she was, they exchanged cell phone numbers and started texting, like normal people. 

But as soon as he thinks of that, he finds there is something kind of appealing about revisiting his early conversations with her, the ones from before he knew she was, well, _Clarke_. Before he knew she was anyone, aside from a random follower.

If he’s honest, he’s kind of curious to see how that went, how they somehow got here.

**Me** : Xkit is giving me the option to relive our courtship

**Clarke** : How?

**Me** : Download old chat logs  
I wasn't actually expecting a response right now  
I thought you’d be filming

**Clarke** : Shooting went late, I'm on lunch  
Back on set in twenty minutes  
I was thinking about calling you

**Me** : Any particular reason?

**Clarke** : Just to hear your voice 

It’s only been about three weeks, but Bellamy already aches with missing her her, like he always does. She doesn’t usually leave for more than a week or two at a time, and the empty space next to him in their bed feels like it’s growing, at this point.

He leaves the text message and hits the phone app, hits Clarke’s name from his list of favorites.

It’s only a second between the call connecting and her picking up. “Hi.”

“Hi. How’s the shoot?” 

“Same old.” She sighs, and he can hear fabric rustling as she settles in, exhaustion in every sound. He wanted to go with her, but classes are still finishing up. He’s pretty sure his students wouldn’t appreciate their final grades being delayed because he was hanging out in North Carolina with his girlfriend. “Kind of a mess, but not especially a mess. How are you? Other than desperately missing me.”

“You say that like it’s a joke, but I do.”

“Yeah, but you don’t always wade into our old chat logs.”

“I would have, but tumblr archiving sucks. Xkit came up with an extension to download them, so I’m doing that.”

“That’s actually kind of cool.”

“Yeah.” He opens up the first file, the conversation she had with Hollywood Histories. “Do you remember how we started talking?”

“You made a post about body hair and reblogged my expert commentary.”

He can hear the smile in her voice, which just makes him feel worse. “I did?”

“Yeah, it was about how it would be more likely to take us out of it, and I was having nightmares about having to sit in makeup getting fake armpit hair put in after I shaved for red carpet events.”

“Holy shit,” he says, starting to laugh. “I never noticed that was you." He only vaguely remembers the post, and he's never been good at remembering usernames. 

“That’s why I messaged you about the party. I felt like you already liked me.”

“I can’t believe you were nervous to talk to me.”

“Hey, you were the celebrity there. I was just an anonymous fan. And I remember the first thing I messaged you about too. It was a party.”

“Yeah.” He bites the corner of his mouth. “I did get a lot of random messages. It took me a while to start paying attention to you.”

“I know. It was nice. I felt like I was earning it.”

He gets it, of course, has always gotten it, but it’s weird to see how it started out. He would have thought more about what he was saying, if he knew. He would have tried to be cooler.

And he probably would have screwed it up and scared her off. If she'd wanted him to know he was talking to Clarke Griffin, she would have told him.

“The party makes a little more sense now,” he says. 

“Yeah, we were talking about the industry for work, he was defending the whole thing.”

“I still can’t believe how much we talked before I knew,” he says, shaking his head. "I feel like I should have figured it out somehow."

“At least you liked the real me,” she teases. “It would have been so awkward if you didn’t.”

“You checked pretty early on."

“I don’t remember that.”

“I guess I put up a _Goredd_ post while we were chatting," he says, eyes still scanning the conversation. "You didn’t ask about yourself specifically, but you wanted to know if I liked the show. I thought you were thinking about watching it.”

“Sorry. For not telling you.”

“Seriously, I don’t mind. It’s kind of awesome. Like reading a book again after you know the twist.”

She laughs, soft. “Okay, I need to eat. If I put you on speakerphone, will you give me highlights as you read?”

“You miss me too, huh?”

“I’m just wondering why I agreed to do this in the first place. I keep telling myself I don’t care about being in movies, but if I change my mind—“

“You need money to keep me in the lifestyle to which I’ve become accustomed.”

“That must be it.”

“It’s a good movie and you like the part. Just because it’s stressful right now doesn’t mean that’s not true anymore. You’re not taking every part, just the ones you want to take."

“I still miss you.”

“I miss you too. But this chat thing is helping. It’s really cute, seeing you trying to figure out how to make conversation.”

“I was nervous!” she protests. “Which part?”

He reads her his favorite excerpts as she eats, and keeps going after she hangs up to get back to work.

In a way, the strangest thing is how familiar the conversations are. He knows there are some people who take advantage of the internet to become completely different people, but that's never been how he uses it, and it wasn't how Clarke used it either. She's the most honest version of herself, right from the start, the person she is when they're alone, when she isn't worrying about cameras or public opinion.

And how fucking lucky was he, that she decided he was someone she wanted to talk to? 

He does remember switching from Hollywood Histories to himself, when he talked to her. It had been mostly a practical choice; she was the only person he talked to regularly from that account, and it was a pain, switching between chats just for that. And he'd been getting tired, he remembers, of knowing nothing about the person he was talking to. In theory, he'd had all the information he needed, since Clarke was messaging him from her actual personal tumblr, but she had no profile and made very few personal posts. He wanted to know her name and where she was from--her gender, at that point, not that he minded using _they_ pronouns in his own head--but he couldn't ask those things without being willing to supply them himself.

When he'd found out she was in California, it felt like fate, and the reaction was so strong he'd made himself pull back from it, to remind himself that it didn't mean anything. He'd always had the impression she was holding back herself too, and now, as he reads back over her descriptions of her days, the way she talks about her job and her responsibilities, it's easy to put the pieces together.

The first time she asks him if he had any celebrities in, it still makes his heart skip. He'd been a little disappointed at the time, had taken it as a sign that she didn't live very near to him, because then she'd have her own random celebrity encounters and wouldn't need his.

But she did have her on, of course, all the time. They just looked very different from his.

He can't just sit down and read the chat logs all the way through, of course, since he has classes to teach and grading to do, so it takes a couple days before he makes it to himself meeting Clarke, as herself, in the real world. Every time he thinks about it, it feels unreal that he went so long without knowing who she was, but at the same time, he didn't.

It makes sense, that she felt like she was lying to him, that he felt like he was missing something. But she was so honest in so many ways. It's not as if he was wrong about anything about her. All he didn't know was her name and occupation. It's a big thing to not know about someone like her, but all the important things were there. He always said that, but this is the first time he's ever really believed it.

He doesn't realize he's hit the _any celebrities today?_ where they actually met until he sees his own response, the simple, unassuming _Clarke Griffin_.

He'd actually tried to go back and find this, after he and Clarke started dating. He'd remembered the broad strokes of it, mostly because he'd been worried about going too far talking about his celebrity crush with his non-celebrity crush, but he didn't remember the details, Clarke acting like she doesn't entirely remember who Clarke Griffin is, his own honest but wry take on things.

And then he hits, _She laughed at my shitty self-deprecating humor, so we're probably getting married_ , and his heart actually stops.

He didn't mean anything by it, of course. It was another shitty, self-deprecating joke, the same kind he always makes, his own way of teasing himself for being so proud of a successful five-minute conversation with a famous person, something he forgot about as soon as he said it. He hadn't _meant it_. Of course he wasn't going to marry Clarke Griffin.

Except that he is.

Not that he's asked her yet or anything. They haven't had this specific conversation. But they've been dating for just over a year and a half. Clarke gets asked about it sometimes in interviews, when she does them-- _you and your boyfriend seem pretty serious, are wedding bells on the horizon?_ \--and her response is always negative, but more of a _not yet_ than a no. She always takes it as pretty much a given that it will happen, one of these days.

For his part, Bellamy wants to marry her in an absent, easy way: he loves her, and that's what you do, with people you love. You marry them.

He takes a screenshot of the conversation, ending with Clarke's simple, _I'm happy for you_ , and stares at it for a long minute.

"We're probably getting married," he murmurs, and it sounds true.

*

As a rule, Clarke schedules her flights to get in either very early or very late, and this one is late. Bellamy's still used to long, weird hours, so he goes to pick her up, mostly because waiting the additional forty minutes for her to get to their place in a cab before he sees her feels like too much. He finished their tumblr conversations, right up to the simultaneously innocuous and amazing final messages she sent him there, asking when he was working the night she came to tell him who she was, and it didn't really help with missing her. If anything, it made it worse, remembering how they got here, relieving both of them trying and failing to not fall in love before they had even met.

He gets to the airport ten minutes before she's supposed to land, takes a seat in the baggage claim to wait. It's fairly deserted, but he's pretty sure a couple girls waiting for their bags recognize him, from the way they keep stealing glances. Or maybe they just think he's hot. Either way, they clear out before Clarke makes it down to him, so he doesn't have to worry about photographs. If they got any of him, they can enjoy them; paparazzi have stopped thinking he's even slightly exciting.

It's twenty minutes later when he spots her on the escalator, and even fro that distance, she looks exhausted. Not that he's surprised, honestly; it's three hours later for her than it is for him, nearly midnight on the east coast, and she had a long day of flying on top of a long month of filming.

When she nearly falls into his arms, he just laughs and kisses her hair.

"I think you should rethink your flight schedules. Hi."

"Hi," she says, holding onto him tightly. "I should. Thanks for coming to get me."

"You're welcome. Do you want to go pass out in the car while I wait for your bag?"

"No, I want to pass out on you."

"Perfect." He gets her hand and squeezes it, guides her over to the baggage claim. She looks even more worn out up close, but he waits until they've gotten her bags and navigated to the highway before he asks, "Rough shoot?"

"We got it done on time, but we definitely had to pack a lot in to the last few days. And the more stressed the director got, the more of an asshole he was, so that sucked."

"I bet. Are you hungry?"

"I think I'm too tired to be hungry."

"Next time you do a movie, we should make sure I can come."

She's practically melting into shotgun, eyes closed, body already preparing itself for sleep. But the statement makes her smile and open one eye. "Yeah?"

"You don't want me to?"

There's a pause long enough he wonders if she drifted off trying to think of an answer. "No, it would be better. But I don't actually need you around."

"I know. We can just like spending time together. And you're shitty at taking care of yourself when you work."

"Yeah. But you don't have to plan your whole life around me."

"You'd be planning around me. Don't take movies when I have classes."

"I guess I could live with that." She yawns hugely. "Or I could stop doing movies."

"Except movies you like, which this was. Don't worry, you'll sleep for like three straight days and feel better about everything."

"Was this what you thought dating a celebrity would look like?"

He laughs. "That was the cool thing about reading our old tumblr conversations."

"What?"

"I knew exactly what you were like, going in. I get why this wasn't harder. I forgot how long you weren't Clarke Griffin to me, but you were always--you. I kind of forgot."

"Should I go back and reread too?"

"I don't know if it would be the same for you. You always knew I was just a guy."

"Not just a guy," she says, voice going hazy again. "My guy."

He smiles, even though when he glances over her eyes are closed. "Your guy."

She's mostly unconscious for the rest of the drive, so Bellamy puts on the radio to keep himself awake. Traffic's fairly minimal and the route is straightforward, something he's done plenty of times, and when they get home, he unloads all the baggage and gets it into their place before he wakes Clarke.

"You need me to carry you?" 

"Can you?" she asks, sounding curious. 

"Not for that long, but probably into the house. I'm pretty ripped."

She smiles. "I can walk. Sorry I passed out on you."

"I don't mind. Seriously, I'm just glad you're here."

"Me too. And I've got another month of hiatus to sit around doing nothing."

"Yeah, brag about it." He kisses her temple. "I don't have anything to do tomorrow either. I got all my grading done. We can just watch TV and not leave the house all day."

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking. It got me through the last few days of filming."

He smiles, squeezes her shoulders as he bustles her upstairs. "Yeah. So go to sleep so we can get to it."

"I don't think movie stars are supposed to go to bed before midnight," she protests.

"You're more of a TV star."

She laughs and goes to the bathroom to brush her teeth, and even though he's not tired yet, he strips down to his boxers and slides into bed. They bought the house for two reasons, the first being _Goredd_ getting picked up for another season and the second being his getting an actual job in academia. He's still convinced half the reason he got it was that he's dating Clarke, and the college thinks it's good publicity, but it's local and pays well and it's not like anyone's ever _said_ that's why they hired him, so he can still pretend it was entirely on his own merits. But he's realistic about how the job market is for history professors; it seems pretty likely his profile was a factor.

But it was still good news, and a sign that they'd be in LA for a while and he'd have a decent source of income, so when Clarke proposed upgrading from the condo to an actual house, he couldn't come up with many counterarguments. It's a lot of money, but Clarke has a lot of money, and he has enough that he's contributing without breaking the bank.

It's a weird thing, living with someone who's so much richer than he is, but he's mostly used to it by now. Clarke has an excess of money, he has an excess of practical good sense. She might pay more for groceries than than he does, but he's the one who fixed the leaking shower without having to call a professional.

Clarke pauses in the doorway, taking in the sight of him in bed. "This is what I was missing," she says, and he smiles.

"Me too." He pats the space next to him, the one he somehow never manages to roll into. Like his body refuses to admit she's gone, even when he's asleep. "And this."

She curls around him, warm and close, smelling of shampoo and soap, and it's such a relief, to have her back. "You're going to sleep soon?"

"Yeah, I'm just going to read for a little while."

"Okay." She kisses his chest, right above his heart. "I love you."

"I love you too. Welcome home."

*

Three days later, Clarke has a meeting with her agent, and Bellamy takes the opportunity to text Raven: _What's Clarke's ring size?_

As he expected, she doesn't bother responding and calls him instead. Raven prefers texting as a rule, but Bellamy is a notoriously slow and terrible texter, and he might play it up with her just to piss her off. That's the kind of friends they are.

"Hey," he says.

"Are you proposing?"

"Not until I have a ring."

"And she doesn't know."

"Not exactly. We've talked about it generally, we both want to get married and she says she wants to marry me. But I haven't told her I'm planning to do it soon. I figure it'll be a good surprise."

"You better hope so."

"You think it's a bad idea?" he asks, curious. Raven is one of Clarke's best friends, probably the foremost expert on Clarke's emotional state other than Bellamy himself.

"Asking her? No. But I'm guessing you know better than to do some big public thing."

He snorts. "I should give up on the flashmob proposal?"

"She'd kill you."

"I know. And I don't know why you think you need to tell me that. I don't know how I'm asking yet, but I know that's not it."

"Cool. I'd ask if you need any help picking rings, but I suck at jewelry."

"Yeah, I was going to get my sister to help with that. O's actually pretty good with that stuff."

She's quiet for a minute. "I have no idea why I want to ask if you thought this through, but I really do. I know you're not into her because she's famous, but you're so not into her because she's famous it kind of comes back around."

He opens his mouth and closes it again. "Can you phrase that in the form of a question I can answer?"

"Are you going to be cool not bragging about getting engaged?"

"How much bragging do you think I want to do?"

"I think you want to be a normal person using social media. I know that's what you try to do with instagram. But the more Clarke's in your life, the more careful you have to be about documenting it, or people are going to come at you. If I want to post a picture of myself with my girlfriend? No one gives a fuck. I get to do that. If you do it too much, you're using her for attention or to get famous or whatever. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life overthinking that shit?"

"It's not a plus for me," he admits. "But I want to spend the rest of my life with Clarke, so I figure I should probably marry her. If she doesn't want me to brag about getting married on instagram, I won't. I get that if I talk about my girlfriend, everyone knows who she is. Do you always worry about this?" he can't help adding. "I know I do, but it's not even your relationship."

"I always worry about Clarke." She huffs. "Look, I've been waiting for this to go wrong, okay? Nothing personal, just it should not be able to last. You guys are defying like every law of nature. So this is my last ditch thing. I know you love her, it's pretty obvious, but if you're not ready for everything--"

"I am. We already live together, I know how it is."

"Okay. Sorry," she adds.

"Just reevaluating how much you like me."

"If I didn't like you, I'd be telling Clarke to dump you. I just want you to know that if you and Clarke get divorced and you decide to become an asshole and talk shit about her in the media, I'll fucking destroy you. But I don't really think you will."

"Get divorced or become an asshole?"

"Either, honestly."

"Yeah, I'm hoping I don't. Send me the ring size?"

"Will do. I've got it somewhere. Or I can get it without making anyone suspicious, unlike you."

"I figured you were safer to ask than Abby, but now I'm reconsidering."

"You are not. Abby's going to read you the riot act."

"Which doesn't even make sense," he grumbles. "You guys like me. I didn't think me proposing would be a surprise. Why am I getting lectures now?"

"I bet your sister does the same thing to Clarke, once you guys are engaged."

"Yeah, probably," he admits. Octavia _does_ still worry about him and Clarke, so maybe it does make sense. They could have always broken up, but if he proposes to her and she says yes and they get married, that's a real commitment.

Granted, it doesn't feel like _more_ of a commitment to him than moving in and getting a house together, but maybe it does to Raven and Octavia and Abby. Maybe it will to Clarke, but he doubts it. He's pretty sure she feels the same way he does, that marriage is an inevitability, after everything else they've been through.

Comparatively, it just doesn't feel like that big a step.

But Raven was right; Octavia's apparently just as ready to fight Clarke on his behalf as Raven was to fight him on hers. 

"Come on, you know how celebrity marriages turn out," she says, leaning down to squint at a row of engagement rings. "I'm not saying Clarke is definitely going to cheat on you--"

"Really? Because it kind of sounds like you're saying Clarke is going to cheat on me."

"Not--" She huffs. "It's not like it's _personal_ ," she says, which is only so comforting. "I don't think Clarke's like that. But I know it's hard. She was out of town for a month and you were a mopey mess."

"That's probably not going to happen much more."

"You say that every time, and then she gets a new project she's excited about."

"You make it sound like it's some epidemic. She's done two movies since we started dating. It's not like she promised me she'd never make another one and she keeps going back on her word. She thinks she might be done with them after she finishes with her TV show, but even that's not guaranteed."

"I just worry about you," she says, and he smiles. 

"I know you do. I just think you could worry about better things, if you're going to worry about me. Like whether or not I'm going to publish enough stuff to get tenure, and how my student evaluations are going to be. Clarke's like the least stressful part of my life."

"I know. I just still can't believe it. How are you _proposing_ to _Clarke Griffin_?"

In addition to Clarke's ring size, Raven sent a list of jewelers who are used to dealing with Hollywood people and have reasonable prices, for which Bellamy will be eternally grateful. There's no one else around to overhear and give them away.

"I know you hate remembering that we met through my dorky tumblr," he tells her, "but you'd probably feel better if you remembered we met through my dorky tumblr."

"Really?"

"She made a tumblr because she didn't like going to Hollywood parties. You really think she's going to decide she needs to have an affair or dump me for a trophy husband?"

"Okay, yeah," she grants. "You found the least fun person in Hollywood and got her to fall for you. I should just stop thinking it's weird."

"You can think it's weird," he says, shrugging. "Just as long as you're happy for me and stop thinking my girlfriend is going to dump me just because she's famous."

"I am happy for you. And I think this ring would be good."

"Which?"

The one she points out is nice, but he can't help getting distracted by the one next to it, a little less ostentatious, a little easier to pass off as just a ring, if Clarke wants. She might not want to be visibly engaged right away, or that often.

"I think the one to the left."

"That's a pretty small diamond."

"She's not that into big jewels. They're not really her style."

"You're the expert," says Octavia, dubious, and he has to smile.

"Yeah, I guess I am."

*

Bellamy doesn’t understand a lot of proposals. Not that he needs to, obviously—the only people who need to enjoy any given proposal are the people involved in it. But it’s hard to get ideas when the proposals that get a lot of attention are big, flashy things, nothing like what he and Clarke are into.

And, obviously, his proposal doesn't have to be huge or elaborate or even particularly interesting. Clarke loves him, and if he just gets down on one knee in their kitchen and asks, he knows she’ll say yes. If he doesn’t come up with anything special, it’s not a big deal.

But even if he’s proposing in the kitchen, he wants to say something good. It’s going to be an event somehow. Just as soon as he figures out how.

Ordinarily, he’d talk to Clarke about it, but since it’s theoretically a surprise for her, he doesn’t want to just say it, and he doesn’t trust his own espionage skills enough to hint at it. He mentions wedding stuff when they see it, but Clarke never really picks up the conversation, so he has no ideas and feels like the ring is burning a hole in his underwear drawer whenever he thinks about it.

The solution comes to him suddenly, a bright flash of inspiration when his phone informs him someone has submitted an ask to Hollywood Histories. The blog is still going, still fairly popular, and still anonymous, and all at once it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

He can propose to Clarke in front of the entire internet, and no one will ever know.

Obviously, he wants to do it right away, to immediately dive into figuring out the specifics of the post, but Clarke is settled against his side, warm and sleepy, and she has a habit of glancing at whatever he’s working on. It’s going to have to wait.

He kisses her hair instead. “I got an ask about some terrible King Arthur movie. You in?”

“Always. How terrible?”

“Only one way to find out.”

He’s in no mood to write a proposal after they finish that nonsense, so they just have sex to try to forget what they’ve seen, and he pretends to have a meeting with a student the next morning so he can work on the proposal in his office.

It’s maybe more than he needs to do. But he’s having fun.

His first impulse is to find the post he forgot about, that first one she ever commented on, and he does find it, marvels at how little he thought of it, how completely unprepared he was for what was coming next. 

He's all set to reblog it with a new addition, right up until he remembers when it first came out that bb-hate was Clarke Griffin’s boyfriend's tumblr, all the speculation about which of his friends it could be. No one knows he’s also hollywood-histories, but if he links that account to touched-the-sky, someone else could remember that was a contender for Clarke's secret identity, and someone else would definitely realize that a dorky history professor might have a dorky history tumblr.

So he can’t be quite as romantic as he wants to be. He’ll make it work.

_I know I’ve been clear over the years that this blog is about content, not about me, but I’m going to actually make a personal post for once. Feel free to skip it, I won't be offended._

_Even though this isn’t my personal blog, I’ve met a lot of amazing people through it. I’ve gotten so many great messages, helpful comments, and random incoherent flames, and I appreciate almost every one. But two years ago, someone left a comment, and I liked it. I actually forgot about this; we were talking and she told me how exciting l it was for her, how it gave her the confidence to send me a private message, but, not to brag, I’m kind of a big deal. It was huge for her, but for me, it was Tuesday._

_But she didn’t know that, so she sent me a message, and we started talking. Pretty soon, we were talking almost every day. Before I knew it, she was one of my best friends, and I was trying to figure out if she lived anywhere near me so I could ask her if she wanted to watch bad movies together, in person._

_Turns out, she did, and she’d been wondering the same thing._

_I love running this blog, I do. It’s one of my favorite things, and I’ve met so many great people and learned so much cool stuff. But nothing it’s given me is as good as my girlfriend, partner, and best friend. So this seems like the right place to ask:_

_Marie, will you marry me?_

It takes him much longer than it should to edit it, changing single words, reworking sentences, going back and searching through way too many different tumblrs to make sure Clarke has never been publicly associated with the name _Marie_ , but he finally forces himself to stop fiddling. It's good. It's _them_. It might make Clarke cry, which feels like a weird goal to have, but he's _proposing_. It's supposed to be a big deal. He's hoping he'll cry too.

It's not a long drive to the house from his office--that's part of why they bought this house--but he still waits until he's in the driveway before he pulls up his drafts and hits post.

She's probably not even going to see it until he tells her to look, but it's still fucking terrifying. He has to rest his head on the steering wheel and take a few deep breaths before he's ready to leave the car, even though he is completely and totally certain she's going to say yes and be thrilled.

Proposing sucks. He's never doing it again.

Clarke's in the living room, playing _Breath of the Wild_ on the Switch. She's still not generally great with video games, and he's not sure she's done _anything_ related to the main storyline, but she's really enjoying running around seeing how she can interact with the environment. 

Ordinarily, he'd settle in and offer commentary, but his whole body is still thrumming with nervousness, and he can feel the ring in his pocket, small and slightly pointed, warm against his skin.

"Hey," he says.

She doesn't even look at him. "Hey. How was your meeting?"

"Fine. Can you do me a favor?"

"Sure, what?"

"I put up a Hollywood Histories post, I need you to check it for me."

Because she is his favorite person in the entire world, her response is instant suspicion. "You already put it up?"

"Yeah. And then I immediately second-guessed myself so you should read it and let me know if I need to change anything."

"You know you can just ask me to read things _before_ you post them, right?" she teases, fond, and he just smiles as she pauses the game and finds tumblr on her phone.

Clarke's tumblr use has lessened, since they started dating, but she still follows a decent number of people and keeps up with various news sites, so his post isn't quite at the top of her dash. She scans the other posts quickly as she scrolls, casual, and he kisses her hair like he's not actually losing his mind.

Once she hits his, it doesn't take her long to figure out what's happening.

"Bellamy--"

"At least read the whole thing. It’s not even that long.”

"You're such a dork."

"Yeah." Once he sees the last line of the post, he gets the ring out of his pocket, but he doesn't have a chance to give it to her before she's kissing him, warm and laughing, and he thinks crying a little too, and he wraps his arms around her and pulls her into his lap.

" _Such_ a dork," she says, burying her face against his neck. "Oh my god."

"Do you want the ring or not?"

"Yes," she says. "To everything. Give me the ring, we're getting married."

He laughs, maybe a little more than he should, kissing her hair and tugging her closer and, yeah, crying a little. Just as planned. "That was okay?"

"Which part?" she asks, and then adds, "Obviously it was okay."

"I couldn't figure out how to propose. I know I didn't have to do anything but ask, but--"

"That was great." She pulls back, biting her lip. "Ring?"

"Octavia thought the diamond was too small, so if you think that, never tell her," he says, offering it to her.

She takes the ring and examines it, this small, perfect smile on her face. "I love it."

"Good. I was going to be pissed if she was right."

"How much was it? Can I help pay for it?"

He laughs and tugs her in, holding her tight against his chest. "I can afford it, don't worry. You can pay for the wedding."

"Did you have a timeline for that?" she asks, sounding curious.

"Not really."

"So why did you propose?"

"I need a reason?"

"I assume you had one, yeah. You didn't just wake up and decide today was the day."

"I said I was going to marry you the first time I met you."

She laughs, surprised. "You did?"

His laptop is on the coffee table so he just grabs it and finds the chat log he downloaded, searching it for _Clarke Griffin_ until he hits the relevant conversation.

" _She laughed at my shitty self-deprecating humor, so we're probably getting married_ ," Clarke reads, smiling. "I do love your shitty humor."

"I know you do."

"How much did it hurt that you couldn't put that in the actual proposal post?"

"Trust me, I wanted to. I was going to reblog the first post you commented on, but I thought someone might remember that touched-the-sky was one of the candidates for being Clarke Griffin's tumblr, so--"

She laughs again, slides the ring on her finger. "So you have to be careful, yeah. You could put in on instagram."

"Which part?"

She grabs her phone and gets in selfie position, realizing too late that the she can't take a picture of herself showing off the ring with her left hand.

"You get the picture," she says, and he takes like five because he knows he's terrible at it. 

"We shouldn't put anything up today," he says, as Clarke scrolls through the shots. They actually turned out pretty well, he has to say. Apparently it's easy to capture incredible happiness. "Not that I think anyone's going to make the connection, but--"

She selects one of the images and texts it to herself. "I'm sending this one to my mom and Raven."

"Raven knows. Well, she knows I was going to ask, I got her to give me your ring size. I didn't tell her I was doing it today, but she was convinced I was going to fuck up the proposal, so if you can tell her I didn't, that would be great."

"It was perfect, seriously. And we'll do an instagram post next week or something. You can brag about how you called it."

"We don't have to," he says. "I don't need to tell the whole world."

"If we can post red-carpet pictures, we can post engagement pictures. Just because the world cares doesn't mean we're doing it for them."

"If you weren't famous, I'd be bragging about it," he admits.

"So we'll brag," she says. "I'm not missing out on an obnoxious celebration post just because I'm Clarke Griffin. I'm going to marry you, I want everyone to know."

He kisses her shoulder, grins. "Yeah. Let's do that."

*

They post the engagement photo on instagram, but he saves the tumblr conversation for a week after their small, private wedding ceremony. He does the whole thing, just as he screencapped it all those months ago, starting with Clarke asking if he saw any celebrities and ending with her telling him she's happy for him. His only change is getting rid of their usernames.

_Can't say I didn't warn her_ , he writes for the caption, with a couple emoji, the ring and the chapel with the heart on it, and then tags her, for good measure. He's pretty sure it's how he'd do it if he was just a history professor with an instagram no one followed except his friends. The conversation might be different, some other insignificant joke he found, but this is how he is.

How he and Clarke are.

It gets hundreds of thousands of likes, and his notifications are filled with congratulations, but all he really cares about is the first comment, from Clarke herself, using her own instagram for once in her life.

_I'm still happy for us_ , it says, and that really sums it up right there. 

Three years knowing each other, two and a half years of dating, and a week of marriage, and he’s not sure he'll ever stop being happy for the both of them.


End file.
